Becoming a 21st Century Literate Educator
One of the weaknesses of educational technology conferences, structured professional development offerings, and other traditional means of delivering educational tech training is that they often find one of two audiences: the group of people who are eager for this type of learning but need and want more, and the group of people who are sitting there thinking this couldn’t be less relevant. For the trainer, it’s difficult to adequately address either.
21st Century learning skills present a similar range of issues. Even if I were to discount the reluctant adopters, the amount of training that it takes to meet the needs of the eager learners group doesn’t fit in these neat time slots.
As a result, conference attendees return excited about the possibilities, but are not equipped to move forward – professional development sessions have either the time to outline the educational benefit of an approach to learning or the time to teach how, but often not both.
Imagine trying to teach your students all they need to know about a subject in one class period. No follow-up. No extension.
This is a similar situation.
Blogger and Educational Technology Consultant David Warlick outlines a dozen steps on a path to becoming a 21st Century literate educator. There are a couple steps that resonate more with me than others, but this list is very good.
A Path to Becoming a 21st Century Literate Educator — Self Development
- Find two or more other educators in your school who are interested in learning and using emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs). It would be of enormous advantage if you can include your schools library media specialist.
- Identify the appropriate person in your school or district who can provide technical support and configuration for your increasingly utilized computers and network. Bake them some chocolate chip cookies.
- Identify some edu-bloggers who are talking about the emerging ICTs you are considering. See the Bloggers to Learn From
wiki, contributed to by a world community of educators.
- Delegate! Assign each member of your team some of the selected blogs to follow, and share specific posts with each other.
- Read, study, and discuss books about teaching and learning and the world we’re doing it in. See the Books to Learn From
- Schedule regular meetings (once or twice a month) at a local restaurant, coffee shop, or pizzeria (preferably with WiFi). Meet and discuss what you’ve learned and what you want to learn.
- Start a group del.icio.us (A social bookmarks service) account for organizing and sharing web resources.
- Start a wiki for posting notes, links, and step-by-step instructions.
- Join one or more of the Ning
- Start your own blogs for sharing your reflections on what you are learning and how you are learning it.
- Start experimenting in your class and share the results.
- Share your results with other teachers in your school and Invite them into your conversation.
You’ll notice that these step are self-guided. The pacing is your own. The ownership is your own. The rewards are your own to be shared with your students.
As Warlick concludes, “Start to model, in your job as a teacher, the practice of being a master learner.”
Image citation: DarkFram, “pausa caffè” DarkFrame’s Photostream. 5 May 2007. 14 Feb 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/darkframe/486264072/>.
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
